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Various programming stuff

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Serafeim

git branches

Introduction

A branch is a very interesting git feature. With this you may have more than one branches in the same repository. The main usage of this feature would be to create different versions of your source code to parallel test development of different features. When the development of each of these features has been finished then the different versions would need to be combined (or merged) to a single version. Of course, merging is not always the result of branching - some branches may exist indefinitely or other may just be deleted without merging.

I will try to experiment with it and comment on the results.

Creating a new git repository

Let’s start by creating a new git repository:

D:\>mkdir testgit
D:\>cd testgit
D:\testgit>echo contents 11 > file1.txt
D:\testgit>echo contents 222 > file2.txt
D:\testgit>echo 3333 > file2.txt
D:\testgit>copy con file3.txt
line 1 of file 3

line 3 of file 3

test

line 7 of file 3
^Z
       1 files copied.

D:\testgit>git init
Initialized empty Git repository in D:/testgit/.git/
D:\testgit>git add .
D:\testgit>git commit -m Initial
[master (root-commit) 96ca9af] Initial
 3 files changed, 9 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 file1.txt
 create mode 100644 file2.txt
 create mode 100644 file3.txt

To see the branch we are in we can use the git branch command. Also git status outputs the current branch:

D:\testgit>git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean
D:\testgit>git branch
* master

So, it seems that when we create a new repository, a “master” branch is created.

Branching

Lets create a new branch and change our working branch to it:

D:\testgit>git branch slave
D:\testgit>git branch
* master
  slave
D:\testgit>git checkout slave
Switched to branch 'slave'
D:\testgit>git branch
  master
* slave

We can see that now the slave branch is the current one. Let’s do some changes and add commit them to the slave branch:

D:\testgit>git branch
  master
* slave
D:\testgit>echo new file1 contents > file1.txt
D:\testgit>git commit -m "Slave modification"
[slave b6083ad] Slave modification
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
D:\testgit>git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
D:\testgit>more file1.txt
contents 11
D:\testgit>git checkout slave
Switched to branch 'slave'
D:\testgit>more file1.txt
new file1 contents

So the contents of file1.txt in the branch master is contents 11 while the contents of the same file in the branch slave is new file1 contents.

An interested behaviour is what happens with uncommit changes when changing branches. Let’s try deleting a file:

D:\testgit>del file2.txt
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch master
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       deleted:    file2.txt
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
D:\testgit>git checkout slave
D       file2.txt
Switched to branch 'slave'
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch slave
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add/rm <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       deleted:    file2.txt
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
D:\testgit>git add -A
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch slave
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       deleted:    file2.txt
#
D:\testgit>git checkout master
D       file2.txt
Switched to branch 'master'
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch master
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       deleted:    file2.txt
#

So, our changes are not correlated with a branch until we commit them! Let’s commit them to the master repository and confirm that:

D:\testgit>git commit -m "Deleted file2.txt"
[master 6f8749d] Deleted file2.txt
 1 file changed, 1 deletion(-)
 delete mode 100644 file2.txt
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit, working directory clean
D:\testgit>dir file2.txt
[...]
File not found
D:\testgit>git checkout slave
Switched to branch 'slave'
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch slave
nothing to commit, working directory clean
D:\testgit>dir file2.txt
[...]
08/10/2013  05:59 pm                15 file2.txt

This is interesting… Let’s try modifying the file2.txt (which does not exist to the master branch):

D:\testgit>git branch
  master
* slave
D:\testgit>echo new file2 contents > file2.txt
D:\testgit>git add .
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch slave
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       modified:   file2.txt
#
D:\testgit>git checkout master
error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout:
       file2.txt
Please, commit your changes or stash them before you can switch branches.
Aborting

We won’t be able to change the current branch until we commit the conflicting change:

D:\testgit>git commit -m "Modified file2"
[slave b5af832] Modified file2
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
D:\testgit>git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'

Remote branches

For each local repository you can define a number of remote repositories, or remotes as git calls them. When you clone a repository from github.com, your local repository will have one remote, named origin. We will try to add the same remote by hand. Let’s suppose that we have created a repository in github.com named testgit. After that we wil issue:

D:\testgit>git remote
D:\testgit>git remote add origin https://github.com/spapas/testgit.git
D:\testgit>git remote
origin

So no we have one remote named origin that is linked with https://github.com/spapas/testgit.git. Let’s try to push our master branch to the origin remote:

D:\testgit>git push origin master
Username for 'https://github.com': spapas
Password for 'https://spapas@github.com':
Counting objects: 7, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (5/5), done.
Writing objects: 100% (7/7), 531 bytes, done.
Total 7 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To https://github.com/spapas/testgit.git
 * [new branch]      master -> master
D:\testgit>git branch -r
  master
* slave
  remote/origin/master

We see now that we have three branches. Two local (master slave) and one remote (origin/master). We will also add the slave remote (origin/slave):

D:\testgit>git branch -r
  origin/master
  origin/slave

Let’s do a change to our local repository and then push them to the remote:

D:\testgit>notepad file3.txt
D:\testgit>git add .
D:\testgit>git status
# On branch slave
# Changes to be committed:
#   (use "git reset HEAD <file>..." to unstage)
#
#       modified:   file3.txt
#
D:\testgit>git commit -m "Changed file3.txt"
[slave ce3b7b9] Changed file3.txt
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
D:\testgit>git push origin slave
Username for 'https://github.com': spapas
Password for 'https://spapas@github.com':
Counting objects: 5, done.
Delta compression using up to 4 threads.
Compressing objects: 100% (3/3), done.
Writing objects: 100% (3/3), 299 bytes, done.
Total 3 (delta 1), reused 0 (delta 0)
To https://github.com/spapas/testgit.git
   b5af832..ce3b7b9  slave -> slave

Everything works as expected. The final thing to test is to try checking out a remote branch:

D:\testgit>git checkout master
Switched to branch 'master'
D:\testgit>echo new new file1 > file1.txt
D:\testgit>more file1.txt
 new new file1
D:\testgit>git checkout origin/master
M       file1.txt
Note: checking out 'origin/master'.

You are in 'detached HEAD' state. You can look around, make experimental
changes and commit them, and you can discard any commits you make in this
state without impacting any branches by performing another checkout.

If you want to create a new branch to retain commits you create, you may
do so (now or later) by using -b with the checkout command again. Example:

  git checkout -b new_branch_name

HEAD is now at 6f8749d... Deleted file2.txt
D:\testgit>git status
# Not currently on any branch.
# Changes not staged for commit:
#   (use "git add <file>..." to update what will be committed)
#   (use "git checkout -- <file>..." to discard changes in working directory)
#
#       modified:   file1.txt
#
no changes added to commit (use "git add" and/or "git commit -a")
D:\testgit>more file1.txt
new new file1

So, it seems that when we check out the remote branch, we won’t have any local branches, however the change we did to the file1.txt is transfered just like when switching from one local repository to another. We can then add the changes and commit:

D:\testgit>git add .
D:\testgit>git commit
[detached HEAD 506674c] foo
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
 D:\testgit>git status
# Not currently on any branch.
nothing to commit, working directory clean
D:\testgit>git branch
* (no branch)
  master
  slave

So we are working with an unnamed branch! We have to name it to be able to work without problems:

D:\testgit>git checkout -b named_branch
Switched to a new branch 'named_branch'
D:\testgit>git branch
  master
* named_branch
  slave

Finally we may push again the named_branch to our remote origin.

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